Over the past few weeks a number of items have reached my news feeds which are mostly very serious, but seemingly incredulous events that show how crazy our world is just at the moment when it comes to its dystopian views about Israel. Here are a few examples of where the truth is obfuscated or where actions and events compound to create a narrative that is the direct opposite of Israel’s realities and aspirations. These are very real examples, some of a scale that would seem insurmountable to reverse. The cumulative impact is reaching a crescendo where the safety of Jewish communities in many cities is at stake, and where the governments and law enforcement agencies are becoming powerless to control social order.
Aaron Bushnell
Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old United States Air Force serviceman, committed suicide by setting himself on fire outside the front gate of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. He claimed he was protesting what people were experiencing in Palestine and shouted Free Palestine as he burned. Activist Ben Shapiro wrote on X: “Call me controversial, but I think that as a general rule, you should not cheer on disturbed anarchists burning themselves to death to protest a non-existent genocide on behalf of an actual genocidal terrorist group.”
Hamas wealth
Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal have a personal net worth of $4 billion and $5 billion respectively, due to profiteering from international humanitarian aid. For perspective, Taylor Swift only has a net worth of $1 billion. Haniyeh and Mashal live luxurious lives in Qatar. Governments around the world, including our own, continue to direct our taxpayer dollars to aid programs that have been proven to educate children to hatred, redirect aid into building terrorist infrastructure, and get administered by organisations that includes members of Hamas. Even though Hamas is designated as a terrorist organisation by the same Governments who write the checks, the aid is forthcoming and no efforts are made to freeze and release the funds of Hamas leaders to return back to the population to which they were intended.
The world continues to funnel massive amounts of money into Gaza, but does not call for the leaders of Hamas to use their own stolen resources to fund the humanitarian crisis of their own making. Prior to October 2007 Hamas was receiving over $US700m per year in aid.
Global Geopolitics
It was reported in Israel that Russia has extended invitations to various Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, for discussions on the Israel-Hamas conflict and broader issues in the Middle East. Journalist Daniel Greenfield notes that “some of the same ex-Soviet operatives who helped set up and fund the PLO, the PFLP and the rest of the “Palestinian” movement are now trying to unite them all under one single banner.
Elsewhere the State Department in D.C. and British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron are talking about immediately recognising a “Palestinian” state as soon as they can force Israel to stop its campaign to destroy Hamas. The Palestinian Authority is trying to bring Hamas into it’s governance, knowing that elections would see them be elected.
In other words, the global response to the 7 October massacres, aided by both Israel’s enemies and Israel’s allies, is to reward the Palestinians with a State that would be led by those who have an ideology that is sworn towards the complete destruction of Israel. Yet the Government of Australia remains “committed to a two state solution”.
In the words of Erol Araf “For Israel, making “peace” by the unrealistic terms offered by the denizens of the so-called international consensus amounts to internationally assisted forced euthanasia, camouflaged as the promise of eternal peace between the parties.”
Medicine Aid
Medicines sent into Gaza under a deal mediated by Qatar and France have not reached hostages held by Hamas. In brokering the arrangement Hamas stipulated that for every box of medication given to the hostages, Palestinians in Gaza must receive 1,000 boxes. This was agreed and arranged. Author Naomi Ragen writes that some medicines were found by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) discovered unopened boxes of medicine at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis bearing the names of Israeli hostages. She also wrote “some of these medicines were in locked black suitcases that washed ashore not far from my house in Zichron Yaakov.”
Israel continues to be forced to negotiate with terrorists who do not, and have never, honoured their agreements. Remember that there was a ceasefire in place on the day the 7 October massacres occurred? Israel has signed 15 formal ceasefires with Hamas since they came to power. Every single one of them has been violated by Hamas.
Police in Victoria blame victims and ban Jews for their own safety
An Australian Jew attending a Melbourne council meeting was blocked from entering the meeting and then assaulted by pro-Palestine protesters. He was then removed from the area by police, sparking questions about antisemitism and police intervention. The man insists he held no intention to provoke the crowd. He arrived with a valid ticket.
This link is must watch video to see and understand what is happening today in the streets of Australia.
Pay to Slay
For many years Israel has called out the practice of the Palestinian Authority to reward terrorists stipends for murdering Israeli’s. They continue to do so, with pride. According to Palestinian Media Watch, since the October 7 massacre, thousands of new murderers have been added to the payroll. A Palestinian Authority official announced that 3,550 terrorists imprisoned in Israel will receive payouts, as will the families of over 20,000 slain “martyrs.”
Of the 3,550 terrorists slated to receive payouts, 661 are Hamas terrorists from Gaza. The remainder are Palestinians arrested in almost daily Israeli counterterror operations throughout Judea and Samaria. “The nearly 67% rise in the number of prisoners will initially cost the PA an additional $US1,331,000 per month (4,970,000 shekels), adding $US16 million to last year’s expenditure of $US161 million (600,000,000 shekels) on terror salaries,” PMW reported.
Where is the condemnation of this? Instead of defunding the financially broke PA, who prioritise this expenditure, they continue to be funded and supported to murder Jews.
Inventing Massacres
Some 200,000 Gazan’s have returned to the north, where Israel is still operating to eliminate terrorists. To facilitate the delivery of aid, the IDF escorted Egyptian trucks to the region. On arrival these trucks were stormed by hungry civilians. Israel was trying to protect and ensure the delivery of aid so it reached its intended recipients and not get absconded by Hamas. There are conflicting reports on what happened. Israel contends that approximately 100 people died, many trampled in the stampede, run over by truck drivers who were being lynched, and others shot by Hamas. Israel claims that as their troops came under threat from mobs braying for their death they fired warning shots in the air. In order to protect their lives had to fire towards the feet of the approaching rioters. They say that 10 people were killed by their troops and issued drone footage to evidence that most of the casualties occurred in incidents where the military wasn’t involved.
Nonetheless, this event was reported locally with ‘factual’ statements that “Israeli troops killed hundreds of people during the distribution of aid”. It was on radio news broadcasts 6PR and 94.5FM. 9 News quickly reported that it was an Israel “strike” against “THOUSANDS” of Palestinians who were waiting for food.
The damage is now done and this event has been reported as a massacre for which Israel is responsible. True to form Penny Wong fired a missive to the Israel Ambassador saying “Australia is horrified by today’s catastrophe in Gaza and the ongoing humanitarian crisis that has led to it.” She then announced further aid for Gaza.
It seems that the allegation of an Israeli massacre that was immediately misreported around the world was so successful that Hamas have invented a new one. Two days later the Ministry of Health in Gaza issued an official announcement that “The occupation forces attacked hundreds waiting for the flour trucks in Al-Kuwaiti square in south of Gaza City.” No evidence, just an announcement.
Locally the Jewish community is very concerned that media reports of massacres by Israel troops are misleading and false reports. They are not even retracted or corrected. The effect of these reports on public perception and demonisation of Israel is part of a relentless campaign to dehumanise Israel and its supporters.
Settler Violence
Both the Australian and the US Governments regularly issue statements condemning Hamas violence with conflated and equivocal calls to condemn “settler violence”.
Channel 14 (Israel) reported last week that 1,300 of the “settler violence” incidents included in a UN report (yes, the one that Penny Wong cited in her condemnation of Israel, and the one that Biden also used to grandstand) were Jewish/tourist visits to the Temple Mount. Think about that for a moment. Freedom of religion to visit a holy site is counted as an act of “settler violence” and is considered by the UN as incitement. These are Jewish people, ascending their holiest of sites for personal contemplation, where they are currently banned from reciting the psalms of King David and all other prayer. These are people that the WAKF (Islamic religious authority for this site) have called pigs with filthy feet.
The entire fabricated blood libel against settlers is based on a UN report claiming that between 2016-2022 there were 5,656 settler attacks against Palestinians. Criminologist Dr. Michael Wolfovitz at Hebrew University Law School analysed the report. It turns out, that out of this number, 1,600 didn’t happen in “settlements” but in Jerusalem, and all of them had to do with Jews simply going to visit Temple Mount, or Israeli police dealing with riots of Arabs on Temple Mount. A further 2,500 are connected to attacks against Jewish property or people, and include taking out terrorists trying to murder Jews.
Nobel Peace Prize Nominations
A shortlist for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize has been published.
At the top of the list is the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, followed by the International Court of Justice, UNRWA and Philippe Lazzarini, Article 36 and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, and UNESCO and the Council of Europe.
UNRWA and its Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, were nominated due to UNRWA’s “fundamental” effort to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Yet UNRWA and its staff have been complicit in terrorist activity directed against Israel, and their funding has been suspended by many nations. An Israel report cites that so far 450 UNWRA staff members have been proven to have participated in the October 7 atrocities. Read more about the UNRWA scandal on this previous Jewgle post.
In line with previous form (a Nobel Prize was given to Yasser Arafat) the Nobel politicisation of its own objectives is a sad state of affairs. Although I do agree that we should stop killer robots.
Conclusion
Justice is a virtue. Israel is consistently subject to injustice and some of the media bias intertwined with international diplomacy has reached levels far beyond farcical.
It is not new, but the intensity of vitriol, the escalation of hatred, and the tolerance of the intolerable has reached new heights since the October 7 massacres. In previous libels such as the Mohammed al Dura, the “Jenin massacre”, Mavi Marmara, or any other headlines that show Israel in an unfavourable light, the damage gets done and by the time the truth comes out it is all too late. There is a quote attributed to Mark Twain that “a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.”
So too, the ability to inform and educate seems to be lost in a world of soundbytes and social media. A statistician recently found that pro-Palestinian content on TikTok outnumbered pro-Israel content by a ratio of 36:1.
More must be done to protect Israel from the litany of lies that are spoken against it, and more must be done to react to each and every case of anti-Israel activism, anti-Israel journalism, and anti-Israel politicking that delegitimises the one and only Jewish national homeland. If we don’t stand up each and every time we run the risk of indifference, and eventually become immune to the perpetual nature of falsehood that is disseminated to good people in nations everywhere.